Third Time’s The Charm? Check Out The First Trailer For ‘Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII’

Unsurprisingly there hasn’t been a lot of video game news over past few days — you’re supposed to be playing games during the Christmas holidays, not reading about them. That said, Japanese developer Square-Enix did release the first official trailer for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII on Christmas eve, because in Japan Christmas is when Robo-Santa flies down from his moon base to distribute buckets of KFC to families. In other words, pretty much just a normal day in Japan.

Anyways, for those not keeping up with the increasingly incomprehensible Final Fantasy franchise, Lightning Returns is the third, and final, Final Fantasy XIII game (yes, that means Final Fantasy Versus XIII is done for). Lightning Returns attempts to move as far from he the “long unbranching tube” design of the first Final Fantasy XIII as possible, instead featuring a large open world. The game also has a 13-day time limit, with NPCs following routines and events happening even if you’re not there to see them. In other words, the game’s basically Zelda: Majora’s Mask, except more complex and cutscene-filled.

Hit the jump for the trailer…

Hmmmm, this looks like it could be the most playable/fun Final Fantasy XIII game yet, but man, all the excitement has been drained out of the XIII world by this point. I hope Final Fantasy XIII is out of your system after this game Square-Enix, because it’s time to move on.